but convey alone to show that the real headlines with none of them are see him a lot in washington d.c. alex and i will talk about robert gates legacy as secretary of defense and another shadow wars drones are now being sent into somalia and hundreds of thousands of protesting in the u.k. today against austerity cuts in the streets of d.c. pretty quiet so if you compare that both countries and we'll look at another state where the economy is being hit thanks to strict immigration laws that are making

hispanic populations but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has missed. finally it looks like the casey anthony trial is winding down but that doesn't mean the coverage is if the mainstream media is just savoring the last bits of a case that has allowed them to slack on the job and just let all the cameras roll inside of the courtroom the defense is working its way through its final witnesses casey's mother father and brother among those called back to the witness stand today other testimony today included how they buried family pets and we are in day thirty two and the pot boiler drama continues the bubble over in court as the personal life of her father george once again comes under scrutiny george anthony's alleged mistress krystal holloway on the stand right now prosecutors cross-examining her the defense has not produced one thing they stated they were

going to give the jury in opening statements and i think they were i am forgetting to this any further can i just make one quick statement who the hell decided that mark firmat the last analysts that you saw in that clip was a good person to go on t.v. and talk about the trial i don't forget this is the guy who. is accused of planting evidence and basically bungling the o.j. simpson police case but he really screwed up and that's who fox news brought on to talk about casey anthony and you guys must be getting really desperate maybe everybody else is so sick about talking about this that they refuse to come on maybe maybe you're just getting even more stupid as the last brain cells of cable news teams fade away after devoting their lives to gossip and non news anyway i don't even think that i can begin to explain to you the joy that i feel the thought of this trial going away not flashing on every t.v. screen anymore disappearing forever but again it's not like you can replace it with anything more worthwhile i'm sure there's another pail and story ready and waiting

to be aired let me give you some bad news while you're busy reading d.m.z. for your hard hitting news stories every morning there's a war going on oh no wait actually there's not just wind but there are six iraq afghanistan libya pakistan yemen and now we have somalia that's right it's being reported the u.s. has already launched drone strikes in somalia is another sign of this creeping shadow wars not that means sorry to break if you go war ultimately leads to destruction and death so instead of incessantly covering a case where one little girl died as her will is that is maybe you can find it in you to just think of all the soldiers that have died or gotten wounded in our wars already how about the civilians maybe you could think of why increasing shadow wars even if the teams are smaller the supposed risk to soldiers is much smaller pop at me maybe you could ask why the hell are we still have so many troops in iraq and afghanistan if your own warfare is because the pentagon's go to hell today three u.s. service members were killed in iraq that means fourteen troops have now died this

month in out war bars that supposedly over and that makes this month the deadliest for troops in iraq since two thousand and eight and you want to know some totals of the lives lost at this point or report yesterday broke down the sad news that in iraq thirty two thousand one hundred and two troops of the. four hundred forty four thousand and four hundred thirty have died in afghanistan twelve thousand and two troops have been wounded and one thousand five hundred thirty five died and that doesn't factor in coalition forces or military contractors and i deftly doesn't even begin to cover the hundreds of thousands of civilians that have suffered and died goes numbers will probably never be know but our mainstream media apparently those deaths those lives they don't matter casey anthony is look or i'm of the century but endless occupation and war is not and that's what they missed.

the series of attacks on a luxury hotel in kabul shows how relevant the taliban still is ten years after u.s. troops first invaded afghanistan well keeping that in mind president obama has just announced the start of a troop drawdown as expected to take place through twenty fourteen was secretary of defense robert gates stepping down but is that future in afghanistan going to look like artie's lauren lyster finds out. the aftermath of a taliban attack in kabul. this week a luxury hotel frequented by foreigners earlier this year gunman wearing suicide vests stole a guest house used by u.n. staffers. last year another attack on hotels there's a burglar in your. examples are strewn through the near decade work familiar aftermath we had any takedown here in the south only now americans heard this declaration before news of the blast was starting this drawdown from

a position of strength about u.s. plans to begin pulling troops out of afghanistan next month but there are declarations on the ground from afghan activists and military might that's not too different mark them all close enough to come by all completion democracy never come by military invasion democracies no. by cluster bomb by white phosphorus by muscle car by bombing our wedding parties and in washington talk of winding down war in one country does not wind down talk of tackling the global terrorist threat as the focus seems to shift to neighbors should be resolved you're seeing resources on pakistan yemen somalia parts of north africa and other locations i've always believed pakistan is more central to what have you noticed a change in the guard at the department of defense with robert gates retiring and former cia chief leon panetta getting sworn in signals this change of course to critics i see no difference between between him and robert gates and for

afghanistan we now hear a presidential pledge to pull thirty three thousand troops out by september two thousand and twelve fully we're covering the surge i have now at west point well it certainly sounds like what the american people would like to hear for the first time ever a majority want u.s. troops out of afghanistan as soon as possible fifty six percent or thirty nine percent want troops there until the situation is stabilized you can see the trend is really flip flopped but what is the reality of obama's plans for troop withdrawal that thirty three thousand he's calling for is a minority of the one hundred thousand american troops that are there that's not including another forty two thousand some nato troops and ninety thousand department of defense contractors meanwhile the u.s. has reiterated a long term commitment to the country there certainly has been an agreement that following two thousand and fourteen there will be some kind of continuing presence . a presence and mantle burden some see as permanent observers believe u.s.

bases are in the forever future travelogue for these a mile and a half there will be a wall and there is some kind of big american construction of every nation depots and housing and. meanwhile violence remains on the rise a u.n. report says it's. fifty one percent in just the last three months. with a sharp rise in suicide attacks. meaning this for mil your aftermath may be here to stay in the stor. washington d.c. . the violence isn't only on the rise in afghanistan and fact it looks like america's shadow wars have now increased i want drone strikes of longer reporting in pakistan and yemen but now there's news that a week ago u.s. drone aircraft fired on two leaders of the small e organization who according to military officials are now expanding their mission outside of somalia and working more closely with. those new leadership and rights

and a new counterterrorism strategy we have to ask if today somalia tomorrow where else joining me to discuss this is jack rice former cia officer and criminal defense attorney jack thanks so much for joining us tonight for starters ok so now we find out that as early or i guess as late as a week ago could have even come earlier there were drone strikes in somalia carried out by the u.s. i know it's not really shocking news but what would you call it. well again shocking is absolutely not the word in fact these was really expected we've seen this expansion going on now for some time this is not the first sort of strikes we've seen from special ops units using predator drones i think part of the problem what really makes this difficult is that it's so easy at least it appears to be easy you know to me you can all of a sudden simply fly over country running down death from the sky and there's no real political problem because you pull back out but the real problem with it is

while it may seem like it's a good idea the short term but you're also doing these potentially alienating not just tens of thousands hundreds of thousands even millions of people who absolutely want on your side so we're talking and stand pakistan iraq yemen libya somalia and you're right the list will go on and on and on because it easy concept is something that a lot of politicians really like why do you think that there are other countries on that list where perhaps we already have special ops teams or maybe the you know gearing towards next that we don't even know about who would come tonight. of course there are no we can think about what we've seen in the past there was a war between ethiopia and eritrea we have oxygen exploding in that part of the country right now so we've seen these wars already build up there's always a potential going on right now between what was. your pseudo sheer on one side

sub a cure in the south on the other and there's a potential war right there with the chinese involved in a lot of these countries you never know how hard the americans are willing to push when it comes to fix it could you end up there just like we saw it in that region in sudan in the past of course everything is of the table. not like this administration really thinks that it needs a legal justification for anything but i'm just curious does this fall under that authorization of the use of military force that they passed after nine eleven. well sadly you're absolutely right this is exactly what it does and part of this is the ability to use these drones to go where it is we believe we might be threatened we've extends to the point where we're actually going after american citizens in fact what i've talked about is that as in so many other a larky this is american citizen or the americans u.s. government as you will have your we decided if you're going to go in and try to kill an american citizen without actually having any due process whatsoever they

have already tried to give it no it's this american citizen now if you contemplate how frightening that potentially is if they're hoping to do with an american imagine what they're going to do at a lower standard just about anybody else that's where we are right now and that's you know bought it straight and don't think it's because it's the let's get some how it's better in fact it's a lot of the same but in some cases even more than anything we've ever seen from the i think a lot of people are starting to realize that as more information comes out about the obama administration's actions as more time goes by as well now i'm just curious because yesterday the white house unveiled their new counterterrorism strategy and john brennan actually said that for the first time u.s. officials are now able to envision the demise of al qaeda do you think that's really possible are they getting cocky there. they're getting cocky they have no idea we've got the worst are here is what we're seeing is this expansion in various

ways it's easy to start even if we find that mr gates himself again my former boss when i was at cia was come out saying if any department defense secretary ever said we're going to go back into age or go back into the middle east you need to get his head examined i believe that's the quote but the problem is it's easy to get it it's very very very difficult to get out and sometimes it's very hard to summarize just how will you are doing yes we are killing people here and there but you can have the problem that we have is we never know if we're actually creating more enemies than we're actually destroy and we just don't know that and i guess maybe the only time will find out is when we pulled up and watch things all part in our week and i mean in a very bad sense a good sense oh yes now they're telling us that the parallel we're doing a really good job of taking the vision the demise of al qaeda now we're going to see more of these targeted operations all over the world if all of that is the case of this is the new counterterrorism strategy then why do we still have so many

troops that need to stay in afghanistan do you think the eight thousand they can be left over when the certainly. well you know that's that's maybe the hundred thousand or maybe in this case we should say about a three to four billion or trillion dollar question because that's exactly that's a lot of debt we've been talking about you know it is i think has to do with buddy part of this has to do with interest groups will actually want this to people look i'm not a conspiracy that never has been but what i'm saying is there are a lot of people who are interested in operations continuing to grow it's not just the numbers of u.s. troops that are in afghanistan is the number of contractors and sometimes the old line follow the money i think it is ever pope in this case take a look at iraq take a look at interest in it realized just how much has been spent were dropping five times their g.d.p. just in the country itself does that make any sense no but somebody is doing very well financially here it's not all of the answer but it is certainly a portion of it well if we do follow the money let's talk about your former boss

for a second robert gates who resigned as defense secretary today a lot of people have been talking about his legacy and on one hand he came out of course trying to act like the reformer the man who was going to bring budget cuts and then suddenly we just saw this quick flip flop in him the last month and feel as he's been making his farewell rounds and suddenly he wants troops to stay in iraq he thinks that drawing down troops in afghanistan is a bad idea he thinks that cutting too much military spending is a bad idea so what do you think happened to him did he lose a battle to this military industrial complex of this massive money machine. oh i think our sleeve that's true i mean part of the problem is the inconsistency that we have seen again and again i mean you watch it yourself and everybody him when you watch everybody talking about the virtues of the arab spring and all what's going on in libya right now and what happened in egypt in all of these places and and how important that is well at the same time we turn around and one who would nor our willingness to support the way it's the mubarak in the first place our

willingness to support the likes of the saudis are willing to turn a blind eye to what was going to pakistan and elsewhere and so when we say certain things before actions actually reflected it then that would be one thing but the problem is what we're seeing from the heat is exactly what we typically see there are say from the americans you say great names we call the peace brave herders to talk about home credibly important is and then we turn around and just the opposite so i guess i have to say i'm not particularly shocked but well do you think that robert gates was a special case or can nobody there. i guess i don't know there but i wouldn't want to i want to believe that somebody can do the right thing i guess we all have to i mean in you have to at least have some optimism that somebody will look at this and open talking about it with high levels of hakim's i'm simply sense that somebody can look at this and say for bad it really there are certain things we should be doing and certain things that we should be doing simply because they

are or are not effective that's what i'm talking about here i'm not even talking about some of the things we should do or be tearing perspective of talking about things that she did and things that were on happening that there's at least a little shred of optimism left that because they think it's missing from a lot of you know the other thing is you know there's a little of that that thank you so much for joining us tonight. if you. will start a colony you casey's massive protest over planned budget and pension cuts and title compared the situation in the u.k. to that here in the us. to give us some closure see a story and it seems so for life is if you understand it and then you glimpse something else and here's you some other part of it and realize that everything is ok if you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. of. the world we are broke. and yet though.

fuck fuck fuck. fuck. let's not forget that we sat in a parked car. length

and. wanted well. whatever the governor says they're for him safe to graduate because their freedom. well protests over major austerity cuts spread to other parts of europe today the u.k. teachers and public sector workers and students left their classrooms and offices and head of prepaid at lights and unions across britain estimate the up to seven hundred fifty thousand people took part in a one day strike to protest planned pension cuts artie's more ever has more from london. down tools are with industrial action and all some of discontent

starts here as the u.k. braces for a wave of strikes not seen for decades this time it's three quarters of a million public sector workers who king out unhappy with the planned reform of their pensions which they stable see them paying a lot more and getting a lot less we don't think we should be vice engines we think they can deserves to have security retirement let's talk about withdrawing from the conscience game because they can't afford to pay the mortgage at the same time as paying for the connections and people are really angry that time and bankers are making record buying this is yeah ok we're being asked to take the country you know conditions to pay more for our pensions the reality is we've got to point the rest which is these are just these people do a huge variety of key work from teachers and lecturers to air traffic controllers and coast guards unisons the u.k.'s biggest public sector trade union deputy chief apple a says his one point three million members are ready for

a prolonged industrial action and we're almost a war footing we've got thirty million pain set aside and we've got a strategy work but i must strange that's not what we want to do we want to talk to the government and negotiate a sensible package and not the ridiculous package of the approach of the moment that package involves raising the retirement age from sixty to sixty six raising pension contributions by workers and having payouts based on. average career earnings rather than final fowler the unions a mixed public support is fundamental to having a successful strike action the government's very unlikely to change its mind about reforms if the public at large doesn't back the unions but that's by no means assured public church workers who already get very generous pensions and the cost of those pensions is very much of the culprits and the burden falls on to the next

generation it really is absolutely essential that public sector pensions reform than even after their reforms except for workers will get for the pensions and missed by the church workers the unions want to apply enough pressure to force the government to change its mind and it's no stranger to you turns it was hell bent on reforming the health service too until it decided to take longer to think about it causing friction in the coalition the government's doing this to reduce the current fifty billion dollar pension bill but it may be cutting off its nose to spite its face that the wider issue here according to the new u.k. pension fund future but it didn't take on that made it public sector work it's no i don't think that helps is what while it made me stop you think that if there was a widespread withdrawal pepsin funds would come up and that would lead you to pay p.l.o. the very shores of investment just what it needs it more than ever begins we'll be

addressing that but is the government listening nor am it r.t. not that. i'm sticking with this story it's time to make a few comparisons so there's are the images of what's going on in the u.k. that and the other it is what's going on in washington that other obviously differences in the situation we haven't seen public sector workers affected here on a federal level that battle's been taken place in the states but then again our federal government hasn't really done anything yet when it comes to drastic austerity measures so how do we compare and does austerity. even work let's break it down with our guest tonight harrison founder of the blog credit write downs our every thank you so much for joining us tonight i like i said these are different situations but i think that we can find some similarities and some points to work off of and let's just start with the total debt both countries are in debt but i think the u.s. is in much worse shape u.k. total debt one point four trillion dollars us oh we're just at fourteen point four

trillion dollars when you break that down that means that debt per person is about twenty three thousand seven hundred ninety one for a british person and we're almost fifty thousand dollars per person in the u.s. so obviously our problem is much worse and britain's that problem why are they the ones that are acting like this is an emergency and they have to do something about it right away and our politicians are speaking on capitol hill well i'm not sure what this. in terms of how they break it down but in general if you were to take the aggregate debt that's not held by the government you know in the u.s. for instance a lot of it's actually held by security and so therefore you know that number would drop significantly i think they're very comparable in terms of the numbers but really it goes to the philosophy of the two governments you have this conservative government the u.k. versus a more progressive government in the us and the conservative government believes that you really need to address the deficit mediately first whereas i think that

the obama administration's new us is much more concerned about the negative effects about you know coming off of the housing bubble and all of the jobs that could be lost as a result of of that sort of talk do you think they're really concerned though because it feels like the congress is just at a standstill you know the obama administration likes to say that that's what they're worried about is job creation but we haven't really seen any action in that sense and finally you know he got a little chiding yesterday to congress and say can you guys not i quite children of my children can do their homework while. you bet i just don't really know if i even see the effort they're talking about you know i don't see the difference of the jobs as well you look at the stimulus package if you if you really want to think about stimulus which is really what they're talking about first it has to be jobs ok there hasn't been the focus on jobs. so at the end of the day you know it's one thing to add stimulus to have cash for clunkers you know to help bail out

the financial sector because you don't want a complete collapse but you know we still have one percent unemployment in the united states so you're right the obama administration hasn't addressed the jobs problem that from i think that. people are resistant to the concept of stimulus and they see that they need to. i think you know if it comes to republicans obviously what they think we need to focus on is austerity but if we use britain as an example they really have been putting their budget to the chopping block where i guess you could say the last two years they've taken on defense now they're taking on these public sector pensions are they really a good example though has austerity actually worked in the u.k. . here's here's the proof of. this. if you're going to consult it it's it expansion there but basically what they're

doing is this demand out of the economy and the hope is that. it's going to have an expansionary effect but the reality is it's not expected that you know you're going to see a potential double d. as a result of these kinds of things and you know we see the sort of on the right in front of us so do you think the us politicians are being honest with americans when they talk about the need to the need for scarily to americans realize that if we actually do that there's going to. even worse situation in the short term if not even continued in the long term as well or then again can we not just keep spending our way forever we can we have to focus on jobs if for instance we were at full employment in the united states but say we had five percent unemployment the united states the budget deficit would be in the order of three percent in the economy would be growing and then you could deal with a lot of the issues there i would even say that three percent is

a manageable number i mean that's where we were. right before we had the huge crisis so ultimately it's all about jobs you've got to get the jobs for us move to full employment and then you can deal with the longer term issues which are much further out than we have today now obviously we see these pictures here very very marching in line and we have not seen that here in the u.s. we've seen it on the state level we've seen constant ohio in new jersey and new york where it states it's governors that have been taking on the public sector unions but if we were to try to compare this to the u.s. if they actually started taking the chopping block you federal pensions to social security to programs like medicare we never see the same amount of anger on the streets oh i think we definitely would you know if you start cutting social security and things like that people would just start writing in the street because you know they feel like we've been paying into the system we don't care about how much we've paid in versus how much we're going to get out but we've been promised

something and now you've written egging on that promise you know people will go and do exactly the same thing that we see here in the united states well i guess we'll have to wait and see but for now they're not doing a whole lot of anything really every month or so much for joining us and i. thought to come tonight we have our thursday edition of show and tell class to southern states of past top of the great last i think effect tomorrow and now the states are facing a worker shortage causing major losses for farmers discuss that as things a return. insulinoma military mechanisms do not work to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government's too weak and want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of america.